Description
Tropic of Cinema is a collection of 50 meditations on “the cinema experience,” and the viewer's experience with its grammar and grammatical modulations, understood at once in aesthetic, philosophical, historical, political, and other registers.
This book is an inspired reflection on cinematic tropes and tropics on codes, rules, and their variations. It draws on the American transcendental tradition, as well as the existentialism of Sartre, while at the same time stepping beyond these thinkers to consider what is often overlooked in in cinema studies, namely, our experience of watching.
Tropic of Cinema follows in the tradition of an extended study of the cinema experience by Pomerance, including: Virtuoso (2019); The Film Cheat (2020); Uncanny Cinema (2022); Edge of the Screen (2024); and Light Thoughts (2026). This volume has three movements, and all of the essays stand upon a multidisciplinary theoretical ground including philosophy of cinema, aesthetics, sociology, and more.
Accessibility Information
Additional accessibility information
- PDF/UA-2, 1.4
- accessibility@bloomsbury.com
Hazards
The publication contains no hazards
Support for non-visual reading
Has alternative text descriptions for images
Navigation
- Page list to go to pages from the print source version
- Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
- All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
Table of Contents
Tropes
1. Tails
2. Raves
3. Acts
4. Corpses
5. Tomorrows
6. Heroisms
7. Drives
8. Awakening
9. Life-Saving
10. Vocation
11. Handles
12. Joins
13. Penetrated
14. Scarred
15. So Far So Near
16. Crowding
17. Hideouts
18. I “Forget”
19. Gaze
20. Whatcha Doin'?
21. Filth
22. Noon, Hampstead Heath
23. Waiting Room
24. I Know Where I'm Going
Confessions
25. Out of a Past
26. The Eyes of the Peasant
27. Strange Love
28. Gravity Free
29. High Fidelity
30. Stone and Stars
31. Nausea
32. Strings
33. Heimlich Space
34. The Immortals
35. Cézanne
36. Alive
Enclosures
37. Boxed
38. Tiny Business
39. Just Like People
40. Here
41. Interminable
42. No Body
43. Audience
44. Into the Light I Bring Darkness
45. Watch It!
46. Aquarium, in Theory
47. O Body, My Body
48. Traffic
49. Hollywood
Works Cited and Consulted
Index
Product details
| Published | 01 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 376 |
| ISBN | 9798216450771 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 51 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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